Alvin Ailey Dance Theater Returns to The Fox

2/10/2014, 5:27 p.m.

Matthew Rushing, a veteran star of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, rehearses at the company's headquarters, in New York. Photo by Richard Drew/AP.

Editor’s Note: The world renowned company of athletes known as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater return to Atlanta at the Fabulous Fox Theater, Feb. 13-16.

Unfortunately, they will roll into town on the heels of the state’s rare second winter storm of the season. At the beginning of the week, the forecast had the city’s temperatures back up in the upper 40s by opening night Thursday, which is still on schedule. That could change, however, depending upon how much sleet falls on Wednesday and remains on the road.

There are so many exceptional dancers in the company that it seems almost unfair to point any such one, but according to the critics Matthew Rushing is extra exceptional.

NEW YORK (AP) — When Matthew Rushing was a young boy growing up in Inglewood, Calif., his mother was concerned he might fall prey to the gang violence that plagued the area. So she signed him up for an afterschool arts program.

It kept the boy off the streets, but also did something his mother could never have predicted: It propelled him into a love affair with dance, a passion that's led him to the very pinnacle of the art form.

If you're a fan of modern dance, chances are you've seen the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, surely the most visible modern dance company in the world. If you have, chances are you've seen "Revelations," the company's defining work. And if you've seen "Revelations," you've likely seen Rushing — slowly undulating his spine in the "Wade in the Water" section, or pointing joyously skyward in the finale, "Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham," both his body and face so immersed in the moment that it's difficult to look away.

Dance writer Wendy Perron has that blissful problem. "When he enters in 'Revelations,' undulating that spine, I don't want to watch anything else onstage," says Perron, editor at large at Dance Magazine and author of "Through the Eyes of a Dancer." Rushing's movement, she says, "seems to spring from him like a fountain. You can't imagine him being still."

Perron adds: "It would be almost a crime for him to stop dancing." But three years ago, Rushing almost did.

He was in his mid-30s, often a crossroads for dancers, and had been appointed rehearsal director, a step in a new direction. He felt overwhelmed by the prospect of doing both. But Judith Jamison, the troupe's famous artistic director who stepped down a year later, had other ideas.

"She was adamant about me continuing to dance," Rushing says. And so he did.

It has been some two decades since Rushing, now 38, joined Ailey in 1992, just a few years after another crucial decision by his mother. The company was performing in Los Angeles, but the show was sold out. A ticket scalper offered two seats.

"One was in the front row, and one was in the balcony," Rushing says. "My mother put me in the front. I saw 'Revelations,' and I saw 'Cry,' which seemed to be about all the women in my life. I hadn't known dance could do that — comment on my life experiences that way."